“Article 3 has never been a problematic area. On the contrary, the amendment proposed by SYRIZA would create major problems concerning the relations between the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate and would certainly create serious internal social disruption.
And let’s ask ourselves whether now that we are coming out of a decade of financial crisis, we cannot afford to create a new division ex nihilo,” New Democracy MP Thodoris Rousopoulos said during the constitutional revision debate.
“For the Greek people, religious sentiment, for historical reasons, is one of the traits firmly rooted in their national identity. Our language, culture, customs, and religion are essential to our national identity. Article 3 is an heirloom of the historical course of the Modern Greek state,” Thodoris Rousopoulos said.
He added that “the demand for the abolition of this element of Greek constitutional history is tantamount to distorting the constitutional history, which symbolically sets out our identity.”
Source: ANA-MPA
